Just another WordPress.com weblog

Fruit Flies Be Gone

Have you ever been invaded by fruit flies? If you are anything like me it’s not unheard of to leave a banana lying around until it turns solid brown or let an apple or two over-ripen. I save all vegetable waste produced in our kitchen in a two gallon galvanized pot, and when the pot is full we transfer it to our compost pile. It is the perfect breeding grounds for fruit flies. I figure if you’ve brought fresh produce into your kitchen you know what pesky things these tiny flies can be. A Facebook post I saw yesterday prompted me to share a fantastic solution for keeping fruit flies out of the kitchen…for it proved I’m not alone.

Early this spring I found a really cool yellow jacket/wasp trap while I was meandering through my favorite nursery looking for treasures to cure my spring fever. The trap is a heavy, glass bottle with a concave bottom forming a well. The bottom is so designed to hold insect attracting liquid.

There is a hole cut out in the center of the bottom.

The design makes it possible for nectar seeking insects to fly or crawl into the bottle but impossible for them to crawl out after they enter the liquid filled concave well. I bought one with yellow jackets in mind.

Not long after bringing the trap home, my kitchen was invaded by fruit flies. For quite some time I’ve used small dishes of apple cider vinegar to attract and drown them. The vinegar attracts the flies, but the dishes are not escape proof so the fly population dwindles slowly. The little dishes sitting around in random places is less than ideal. I thought about the wasp trap hanging on my porch and brought it inside. I filled the well with apple cider vinegar and hung it over the island in my kitchen. Within two days all the fruit flies were floating in the bottom of the jar. No more fruit flies. No more little dishes sitting around with dead fruit flies floating around in the bottom. My wasp trap is now a fruit fly trap and has an always place hanging over the kitchen island.

Clean up is simple. Carefully remove the bottle from its hanging place and run hot water into it through the top. The captive fruit flies…dead or alive…are washed down the drain, and the bottle is ready for fresh apple cider vinegar and to be rehung.

I googled hanging glass wasp trap and found several sources and styles. If you are interested in doing away with your fruit flies, this method works like a charm and obtaining your own hanging glass wasp trap is just a Google away.

Until next time…

If you are suffering from a bad man’s injustice, forgive him, lest there be two bad men. ~ Augustine